'早くこいよ’
 

Hi guys,

I just mentioned to a friend In Japan that I'll be coming back for my Summer vacation. I last went in January. He replied '早くこいよ’
Now I recognise that he is exclaiming that I'm coming back so soon, but I've never seen the くこい before.

What exactly is he saying?

Come quickly. It's actually not くこい you have 早い used in its adverbial form 早く and the command form of 来る -> 来い（こい）. As I understand it, it's generally ok to use the direct command form with a friend if you add よ to the end and you're not using friend in the relatively loose way it's used in america ^^;. I'm sure a native will offer their two sense, but this is fairly easy, so I'm pretty sure about the meaning (less positive about the command's usage). I hesitate a bit to say 'Come quickly' though because the kanji for 早い here is the one I've seen used when it means early, as in 早起き（はやおき） early rising.

In any case, I hope I helped you see the structure of the sentence.

To add to duo797's already fine post...

来いよ is a friendly command. The short phrase alone tells me you've a got a pretty good friend in Japan.　

It's saying "Get your ass over here soon."

A small question to go along with this;

Is はよ (for 早く) just regular slang or is it dialect?
Like in はよしてよ, etc

I don`t need to know how it is used or anything like that - I`m just curious whether it is a 全国 thing or not.

It's mostly used in Western Japan, around Nagoya and further west. It isn't slang at all. In fact, it's a cool trace of Classical Japanese.

In Eastern Japan, you only hear it in one phrase: おはよう. :D

I hadn`t thought about the classical roots... That is kind of cool.
I use it all the time (as does my husband) with はよしな, はよせ, はよきな, はよくいな etc, so the 早くこいよ struck me as something everyone around here would probably say as はよこいよ/はよこいや. :D

You never know something is dialectal until you go somewhere else and no one else says it...

Cheers guys, most helpful!

I would have come to that conclusion if he had used 早く来い but his use of just hiragana for こい confused me.

I have learnt alot from this alone. Many many thanks :vsign: